Communicating With Executives Without the Nerves

You notice your hands are clammy. Your stomach feels tight and your breath goes shallow. Tonight will be another night with little sleep. You never sleep well the night before presenting to your department's Vice President.

It's actually strange, when you think about it. One person can have this effect on our body, while others don't. You might have never questioned why, and assumed that's just how things work.

Let's question it.

The Story You've Been Telling Yourself

Without realizing it, we spend our whole lives building and living a story about ourselves. And it starts young.

As a child, you made a beautiful drawing and saw how happy and proud it made your parents. That felt good. In that moment, a story began forming. "I'm good at making drawings." Months later, the same thing happens after you painted something in class. The story develops: "I'm good at making things. I'm creative."

For someone else, they might have come home with a low mark on a math exam, and their parents were visibly upset. There, a different mental story begins: "I'm bad at math." Which later expands into: "I'm probably less sharp than most people."

In our adult lives, these stories have become very elaborate. Some boost our confidence. "I'm a successful CEO and visionary. My time is precious and every second I spend on trivial things is a waste."

Or: "Most people don't like me. I can't do things well. My opinion doesn't matter much, because other people probably know more than me anyway."

We often forget one important detail. These are just stories. Stories that feel completely real.

Why Communicating With Executives Feels So Different

Picture that CEO. If people started telling her she's a failure, day after day, her inner story would change, even though nothing about her actual ability did. And the insecure man, if he kept hearing how sharp he is, would slowly start to believe a different story about himself. The person stays the same. The inner narrative changes.

So how can this insight help you?

In corporate life, many of us get nervous around senior people at work. This comes up in coaching for executives time and time again. Part of it is real. This person has some influence over our career and our job security. But part of it comes from the inner story we build about ourselves and about them.

Often, without realizing it, we treat certain people as more important. In our internal story, they are up "there," and we are down "here." That creates tension and anxiety.

Yes, in a corporate hierarchy, some people have more responsibilities, experience, and knowledge. But on a fundamental level, we're all the same.

The Story Works Both Ways

The same dynamic works in the other direction. The intern who just started, the person at reception, the new hire who seems unsure of themselves. We can subconsciously place them "below" us, just as we placed the VP "above." The intern is probably nervous around us, telling themselves the same kind of story we tell ourselves about the VP.

Same story, same mistake.

So here is the thing to try. Imagine walking into that meeting with your VP, and you see them as another human being. Someone with more experience, yes. But a fellow human, the same as the person driving your bus this morning, or the one who made your coffee. You have some information you believe is useful, and you want to share it. That's the whole interaction.

Communicating from that calmer place changes how you come across. People read it as confidence, and they listen more openly.

Change Begins With Insight

None of this happens overnight. We all walk around with conditioning and assumptions that have been with us for decades. Reading one article won't make you free from nerves before your next big meeting. But change begins with insight. And the insight is that the senior person across the table has the same fears and doubts you do.

That can be the start of a new story about yourself. One where you are confident, valuable, and worth listening to.

Start believing that, and others will too. And the next time you have a meeting with your VP on the calendar, you might notice you sleep a little better the night before.

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If this is something you're working through, coaching for executives can be a practical place to do that work. For organizations that want to develop this capacity across their leadership teams, leadership training offers a structured path. And if you want to talk through where you are right now, plan a free introduction here. Zero obligation.